BOX SCORE HOUSTON - The Lady Panthers played like two different teams in a 74-46 loss to Houston on Sunday in Hofheinz Pavilion. The Prairie View A&M women's basketball team traded blows with their American Athletic Conference opponent in the first half but failed to match the Cougars' intensity in the second half en route to the defeat.
Junior forward Asha Hampton-Finch Scored 12 of her career-high 19 points in the first half, but her output was not enough to take down the Cougars. Houston scored 12 unanswered points to begin the second half and stretched a Lady Panthers 31-25, six-point deficit to a 18 points as Prairie View A&M went on a six-minute scoring drought to start the second half before senior guard LaReahn Washington forced a steal and converted a fast break layup to put the score at 43-27 with 15:53 left in the second half. Houston stretched its lead to as much as 23 points in the second half.
"We played a great first half. We got a lot of good looks for Asha," Prairie View A&M coach Dawn Brown said. "In the second half it looked like we needed to go back to the gym. Shots weren't falling and we were not disciplined."
Washington and junior point guard Jeanette Jackson struggled with foul trouble, each paying with four fouls early in the second half. Brown said this changed their approaches to the game and led to struggles offensively as well as defensively.
It was a completely different story for the Lady Panthers and their playing style in the first 20 minutes. Trailing 10-2 early in the first half, Prairie View A&M turned to Hampton-Finch to go on an 8-3 run, which was capped off by a turnaround jumper by Finch to cut her team's deficit to 13-10 with 12:50 remaining in the first half. However, Houston countered with an 8-2 run of its own and eventually stretched its lead to nine points at 21-12 with a Destini Texada jumper with 9:58 left in the first.
The Lady Panthers pulled to within three points at 21-18 after Larissa Scott dropped in a put-back layup off of a Jeanette Jackson miss with 7:49 to go in the first half. Prairie View A&M turned to its post players for offensive and defensive production in the first half. Hampton-Finch scored a team-high 12 points in the first half, scoring eight of those points on a perfect shooting percentage from the free-throw line. She also added two first half steals. She finished with 19 points and five rebounds.
Larissa Scott had foUr rebounds, four points and one block in 16 minutes for coach Dawn Brown in the first half and finished with six points and a team-high seven rebounds. The Lady Panthers remained within striking distance and went into the locker room down 31-25.
Prairie View A&M forced 12 first half turnovers, but it was drastically out-rebounded 25-to-11 by the Cougars. Houston's Yasmeen Thompson remained a threat against the Lady Panthers, she accrued nine points and 10 rebounds in the first half.
The Lady Panthers (0-5) will continue their road trip by heading to Miami to play Florida International at 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 6.
